On December 19th 2014, in Longford town Bishop Francis Duffy, Bishop of Ardagh & Clonmacnois, reopened a restored Saint Mel’s Cathedral five years after a devastating fire destroyed the interior of the building, most of its furnishings and fittings, and the roof on Christmas Eve/Christmas morning in 2009. Please see below the reopening schedule for Masses, and public viewings, which will take place in Saint Mel’s Cathedral over the coming days. There follows the addresses delivered at the press conference this morning to mark the reopening of the Cathedral.

At a media conference at Columba Centre, Saint Patrick’s College, Maynooth, Bishop Liam MacDaid, chairman of the Council for Marriage and Family, along with Bishop Kevin Doran, Bishop of Elphin, officially launched the pastoral statement The Meaning of Marriage on behalf of the Irish Catholic Bishops’ Conference. The pastoral statement advises the faithful that “to redefine the nature of marriage would be to undermine it as the fundamental building block of our society.